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All Rise...

Something about the title attracted Judge Patrick Bromley to this assignment. It must have been the "Rama" part.

The Charge

On set with porn's biggest stars!

The Case

Porn-O-Rama is a DVD for no one.

Let me back up. What Porn-O-Rama claims to be is a five-part
documentary series designed to look behind the scenes of the adult film
industry. On paper, I'd be interested to see that; it's why I signed on to
review this title. I have a strange fascination not with porn, but with the
people who choose to make it. And I've seen this kind of thing done well: Girl Next Door, another title I reviewed
for DVD Verdict about the career of adult film star Stacy Valentine, was both
interesting and heartbreaking. It was proof of Roger Ebert's rule that movies
are not what they are about, but how they are about it.

If that's true, then Porn-O-Rama is about…what? It's a
"behind-the-scenes" look that reveals absolutely nothing. I guess I
shouldn't be surprised; as it was produced by members of that community (and is
hosted by 1992 stars-du-jour Ron Jeremy and Alexis DeVell), it amounts to
nothing more than a commercial for porn. And I'm not sure that the people who
want to watch porn need to be convinced by some third-party
commercial—especially one that's nearly 20 years old.

Porn-O-Rama is divided into five 30-minute shows, each one supposedly
dealing with a different subject: one show is about what the stars are like in
their private lives, another is about how their families react, blah blah blah.
The thing is that these shows aren't really about anything. Yes, questions are
asked. In true guarded porn star fashion, however, they are not answered in any
real way.

Also, consider this: the five shows all focus on the same 10 or 15 people
from the same two or three days of filming. Many, many shots and answers are
reused and recycled regardless of what the episode is about, which ought to
suggest that the questions and answers don't really matter.

But maybe that's not why you want to see something called
Porn-O-Rama. Maybe you're hoping to see some naked ladies circa 1992. I
suppose it's my responsibility to say that yes, the disc does feature much
female flesh. It's the same 10 girls in the same shots over and over again, but
they sure are naked. There are also lots of quick shots of people doing it, if
that's your thing. With the availability of actual pornography these days, I
can't imagine anyone seeking out Porn-O-Rama for these reasons.

The disc comes to us via the Private Screening label. It was taken from a
cheap 1992 VHS video source, and it both looks and sounds like it. Image quality
is not great (again, looking like nearly 20-year-old video) and the mono audio
track is muddy and hard to understand. Lucky for us, I'm pretty sure no one is
saying anything worth listening to. There are no extras included.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe there totally is an audience for Porn-O-Rama.
Maybe there's a whole group of people who remember it fondly from the early '90s
and have been trying to track down a copy for the better part of two years. To
those people, I say congratulations. You got what you wanted.